Dear Wigleaf,

I don't know where all of the ice came from, but there is ice on the ground here in Tuscaloosa and it is making everyone nervous. Tuscaloosa rests on a river. We are familiar with water confined to a streambed armored with rocks. I offered to make someone tea and they were upset at the steam shooting out from the kettle—I asked if they were distracted by the whistle of the boil, but the tone, they said, reminded them of the trains that run through town every few hours. They've slept through that noise before, they said, and I nodded—I have too. I too became distrusting of the malleable forms of it all: the crushed ice at the bottom of a cup, the condensation on the mirror. I too know that the river is to the north of where I sleep: the water as lateral as my body in bed. The trains, unfrozen to the east.






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Read BO's "Two Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections."

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